


Reading Between the Heartbeats

by ardett



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Male Homosexuality, pretty much no fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico has heart problems and he doesn't just mean figuratively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Between the Heartbeats

Nico hates the feeling. The feeling of his heart beating too fast as he spars with the others, when he shadow travels and whenever he thinks about that one boy.

_ Percy, Percy, Percy, forcing his heart to a faster tempo. _

It’s a little different though. Nico can tell that his heart is not doing the normal thing that it should. It’s not the nervous or hard working beat that he used to identify. It’s more than a quick heart beat because every time his heart speeds up, Nico can hear a word echoing behind his other thoughts.

_ Overload, overload, overload, your heart is working too hard. _

He first notices it when he’s sword fighting with Jason. Blades had been clashing for a scant minute when Nico feels the miniscule difference. His heart accelerates faster and faster, beyond an active heart rate, the beats getting closer and closer together until it blurs into one continuous stream of noise. He keeps going, tries to keep pushing but something is so terribly wrong. It’s like being on the verge of a panic attack, like hyperventilating but his breathing hasn’t changed. He feels like his heart is going to collapse, like his chest is a captivity too small for his heart, like it’s fighting to burst out.

He knew he shouldn’t have ignored it.

Gold come whistling toward him and he raises up iron meet it and then… and then…

_ Beat, beat, beat, skip. _

His sword drops from his fingers, his hands suddenly shaking too hard to keep a grip on the handle. In fact, his whole body is trembling uncontrollably because for one moment, he stopped living. For one moment, his heart stopped beating.

He feels like the strings attaching him to his body have been cut because he can’t control anything and he really, really hates it. He can see Jason’s face change from concentrated to confused, he can feel the cold coming off the hard metal of Jason’s blade as it hovers inches from his neck, he can hear the clatter of his own sword falling to the floor and he can hear Jason’s voice calling his name but he’s helpless to do anything. Every sight starts to fade behind a film of red, every sound is muffled by the rush of blood in his ears and for a second Nico is trapped in his own mind and defeated by his own stuttering heart.

Nico feels someone shaking him and that seems to scatter the bloody mist that’s blocking his senses. He comes to with Jason’s eyes staring into his, lines of worry etched in his face. Jason’s fingers are digging into his shoulders and somehow, miraculously, he managed to stay on his feet. He tries to step away from the son of Zeus but realizes too late that he’s too weak for even such a simple motion. His foot hits the ground and his knees give out beneath. He crumples and Jason’s hands shoot out to grip his forearms, supporting the little weight of him that exists.

After being rushed to the infirmary and vehemently refusing to let anyone look at him for injuries, Nico is finally released to his room where he is ordered to rest.

For about a week, he doesn’t think about it again. Then things start getting worse.

It’s the little things that indicate it.

Any shadow travel makes his vision black out, leaving dots pulsing across it for minutes afterwards.

_ Faster, faster, faster, a heart rate unparalleled. _

Sparring with anyone becomes more of a danger than good practice because he’ll just shut down without warning. It’s really been pure luck that Jason has been able to halt his golden sword before it seriously injured Nico.

_ Pushing, pushing, pushing, harder until you break. _

Only one thing makes Nico’s heart go so fast it has to skip a beat to keep up with itself. Or to be more specific, one person, one boy, one of Posiden.

_ Percy, Percy, Percy, making Nico hate himself. _

Nico has heard the expression about your heart skipping a beat but he knows that it shouldn’t literally be happening. Your heart should always be beating until the day you journey to the Underworld to stay there forever. So this is a really bad thing, the thing his heart does. He knows it but he can’t stop it.

Whenever he thinks about Percy, his hero.

_ Beat, beat, beat, stutter. _

When he sees Percy, his only crush.

_ Beat, beat, beat, skip. _

And when he sees Annabeth with Percy, both of their eyes full of love for each other.

_ Beat, skip, beat, skip. _

Nico knows that it’s only a matter of time before something in him breaks.

There’s this theory that Nico has but he hasn’t told anyone, not even Jason, with his insistent questioning. It has something to do with eating, or better said, not doing so.

_ Side effects, side effects, side effects, Death is trying to take you back. _

It started after he was rescued from that bronze jar, where he had been living off pomegranate seeds for days. Then again, living is such a relative term. He hadn’t really been living. He’d been closer to death than he was to life. And Nico thinks that that might just be it. In those few days, Death had gotten something of a grasp on him and now he won’t let go.

_ Go, go, go, back to where you belong. _

Nico hasn’t been hungry since that day, Hours, days, weeks pass and still, the mere thought of any substance makes him want to gag. After all this time, he’s finally starting to feel the effects, the deadly toll that he’s bringing on himself.

_ Beat, beat, beat, a heart working too hard to sustain a dying boy. _

Nico can’t quite decide if he’s frightened of dying, the possibility always lurking in his chest now. He knows he would welcome it if he knew there was such a thing as a peaceful death but being a son of Hades had taught him that pain isn’t that easy to escape. No, he decides, he isn’t afraid of death. What he fears is not mattering to anyone before he dies and really, he knows he doesn’t matter to anyone who matters to him. And that terrifies him.

He tells no one about his failing body. He keeps pushing and pushing on this quest because he wants to matter to someone so badly. What he really wants is to matter to Percy.

Then he tells everyone that he can transport Reyna and some huge statue to Camp Half-Blood. He knows he can do it. (He knows it will have a cost too.)

When Percy came to thank him, Nico really wanted to tell him the truth. He didn’t want to hide any longer. But then he remembers all those times he’s seen Percy loving Annabeth and he tries to gather back his courage but he knows the effort is wasted. So he tries to distance himself because maybe it’s possible to fall out of love with someone in the short time he has left. It’s only he feels regret as he watches black hair vanish behind the wood of the ship.

_ Regret, regret, regret, what a way to leave someone you love. _

Now, now Nico wishes desperately that he hadn’t put that expanse between him and Percy, forced them even farther apart because now it’s really bad. He was right, he was able to succeed in the shadow travel. Everyone was safe and unharmed at Camp Half-Blood. Except, perhaps, Nico.

This is the little deed that Death had been waiting for, the one that would push Nico right into his bony fingers.

_ Beat, beat, beat, skip. _

The first beat Nico’s heart skips dictates his final decision. He needs to see Percy one more time because he doesn’t want to die like this, miles away from the one person he cares about.

_ Beat, skip, beat, skip. _

When Nico appears in Percy’s room, he can feel his heart skipping as much as actually beating. Annabeth sees him before Percy, her eyes widening in surprise and a question forming on her lips.

"Did you do it? Where’s Reyna and the statue?"

"It’s done." His voice seems small even in this tiny cabin, wispy, as if he’s already dead. He sees her preparing to ask another question but Nico can feel Death taking hold in the numb of his fingers and he really doesn’t want his life to end like this, with Annabeth assessing his worth in this quest. When Percy’s eyes finally meet his, he tries to imbue these last words to this boy with enough life to actually mean something. "I’m so sorry, Percy." He melts into the shadows.

_ Beat, skip, skip, skip. _

Jason rushes over the moment he sees Nico step out of the shadows, which Nico supposes is a good thing because he immediately collapses, the energy to support himself long gone. His heart doesn’t even feel as if it’s beating anymore, going so fast that the beats and skips blend together in a vibrating feeling.

"Nico." Jason strangles out as he lower Nico to the ground and Nico knows he must he feeling it through his jacket as he cradles him on the wooden floor.

"I want you to-" A shudder runs through his body, cold seeping through his bloodstream.

_ Skip, skip, skip, you’re almost there. _

"Don’t say things like that. You’re going to be okay. We can-"

"Jason." The son of Zeus freezes as Nico’s hand reaches for his, gripping it as if it was his only anchor to the living world. (It is.) "Just tell Percy, okay? I want him to know." He feels Jason trembling beneath him, shaking. 

"I’ll do it."

"Thank you." Nico’s body jolts with the last surge of life leaving him. "For everything."

_ Skip, skip, skip, stop. _

 

**End.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ouch  
> (Special thanks to myself for proof reading because I never proof read.)


End file.
